Case name: Loving v. Virginia

Opinion filed: 1967-06-12

Docket No.: 395

Citations:
• 18 L. Ed. 2d 1010
• 87 S. Ct. 1817
• 388 U.S. 1
• 1967 U.S. LEXIS 1082

Case holding summaries:
• stating that even though the statute at issue applied equally to members of different racial classifications, it still implicated race-related Equal -89- -89- Protection concerns, since the statute itself contained race- conscious classifications
• “[T]his Court has consistently repudiated distinc- tions between citizens solely because of their ancestry as being odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equali- ty.”
• stating that the right to marriage is fundamental
• pre-Younger case in which Supreme Court reviewed highest state court’s final decision
• “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.”
• “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.”
• statute prohibiting a white person from marrying any person other than a white person is invalid
• rejecting the argument that anti-miscegenation laws, because they apply to members of all races, do not raise equal protection concerns
• fundamental right to interracial marriage
• discrimination against race in miscegenation
• invalidating a state anti-miscegenation law on equal protection grounds in part because "the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."
• freedom of choice to marry may not be restricted by invidious statutory racial discrimination
• entertaining a challenge by an interracial couple convicted of violating the allegedly unconstitutional statute outlawing interracial marriages
• freedom to marry individual of another race
• describing marriage as "one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness" by free people
• antimiscegenation statute violates Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses because freedom to marry is fundamental
• "Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
• validity of state law prohibiting marriage
• holding that a statute that prohibits interracial marriages violates the Equal Protection Clause
• stating that even though the statute at issue applied equally to members of different racial classifications, it still implicated race-related Equal Protection concerns, since the statute itself contained race-conscious classifications
• noting that the opinion was issued on June 12, 1967
• declaring marriage to be “one of the vital personal rights 13 essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness”
• noting that the state cannot rely on a history of exclusion to 12 narrow the scope of the right
• facially neutral anti-miscegenation statutes held in violation of Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses
• holding unconstitutional statutes that prohibit interracial marriage
• "In the case at bar, . . . we deal with statutes containing racial classifications, and the fact of equal application does not immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race."
• subjecting race-based miscegenation statute to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause
• "There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification."
• holding that the fundamental right to marriage encompasses the right marry the person of one's choosing, even if that person is of a different race
• “ There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent o f invidious racial discrimination which justifies” state law that prohib­ ited interracial marriages
• criminal law prohibiting interracial marriages
• “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.”
• which declared a miscegenation statute an unconstitutional impingement on the fundamental right to freely marry
• "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."
• "Over the years, this Court has consistently repudiated '[d]istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry' as being 'odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.' "
• relying, in an opinion for eight Justices, on the Due Process Clause
• statute prohibiting a white person from marrying any person other than a white person is invalid
• statute prohibiting interracial marriage received strict scrutiny because it distinguished on basis of race and because it infringed upon fundamental right to marry
• invalidating law prohibiting interracial marriage
• race subject to strict scrutiny
• holding prohibitions on interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment
• "Marriage is [a] `basic civil righ[t],' " and cannot be denied based on a racial classification. (citations omitted)
• “If it was so important to the community 29 According to Gallup polls, in 1958, only 4% of respondents approved of Black- white marriages, while 94% disapproved. Joseph Carroll, Most Americans Approve of Interracial Marriages, Gallup (Aug. 16, 2007
• "Marriage is one of the `basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival."
• “[T]his Court has consistently repudiated distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry as being odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” (internal quotations omitted)
• freedom of choice to marry may not be restricted by invidious statutory discrimination
• invalidating a racially neutral anti-miscegenation statute on the ground that it unconstitutionally discriminated against blacks
• finding the zone of privacy includes the freedom to marry in the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
• declaring all bans on inter-racial marriage unconstitutional
• invalidating law prohibiting interracial marriage

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